MovieChat Forums > The Woman in Black (2012) Discussion > Daniel Radcliffe looks too young to have...

Daniel Radcliffe looks too young to have a son that old


What strikes me is that it's his God son in real life but I think Daniel still looks too young to be playing a dad to a boy of that age. I'm sure it wasn't that uncommon for people to marry and have kids in their teens back then but still it didn't seem right to me. Did anyone else feel that way?

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Not really. TWiB was set in a time very different from our own.

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House. My room. Cant walk. My medal. My father. Father, dont!

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Once you can get your head round he is not Harry Potter and a child wizard in this role then he totally looks old enough to be father of this small child. It took me about six months to get my head round it, and once I did and saw him for the more adult role he was cast as I really enjoyed it and didn't see age as an issue at all.

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Once you can get your head round he is not Harry Potter and a child wizard in this role then he totally looks old enough to be father of this small child


I never once mentioned Harry Potter. I've only watched one Harry Potter movies and the other's I had to sit through in school didn't make any sense to me. I'm just saying that he looked too young to have a child that age. I don't imprint Daniel on one character like so many other's does.

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People grew up faster in the early 1900s.

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House. My room. Cant walk. My medal. My father. Father, dont!

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He looks too young full stop: hes supposedly a fully qualified lawyer!

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My boyfriend thought he looked too young to have a child, too. But like other people said, it's important to remember in this time it was common to have children and be married very young.

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Daniel Radcliffe has one of those boyish looking faces anyway; add that to the fact he was only 22-23 when the film was made and I can understand your point.

However, I was thinking more along the lines that in the 1890's (which is the date I think I recall seeing onscreen at some point) people married much younger and had children almost immediately after marrying in many cases. I don't know though if a 23 year old would feasibly have completed law school and been married and had a child all at the same time then. While that is common now for people to have a child at a young age and still complete school in a regular timeline I don't know if that would have been the case in that time period.

That being said, I was capable of thinking of the character as being more of the age of at least 26 or older rather than 23 years old which is Daniel Radcliffe's real age. I had to actually go to his IMDB page to find his real age as I initially placed him to be around 26 or 27 while viewing this film. I did watch most of the Harry Potter films but I did not have the issue of locking him into a specific age category because of those films either as another poster mentioned. Maybe I am the exception but I found his portrayal of a young father of a four year old boy in this film to be believable.

I have a nephew who is thirty-four but looks closer to twenty-two so maybe that is why I find it much more believable. Coming from a large family where most of us look considerably younger than our actual ages probably contributes to that thinking as well.

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I met a woman with four children who looked like she was still in high school -- turns out she was almost 30! Some people are just young in the face :-)

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He was definitely a younger Father for sure but it wasn't entirely uncommon during that time as many people did have children in their late teens during that era. Lifespans were only about the age of 40 as well.

What confused me more was his job...he was clearly only 21-22 when this was filmed and looked 25, oldest, how could he be a lawyer or be experienced at all in it? I was confused with that. I don't know much about the education system in the 1800s but I'm pretty sure an early twenty something or even a mid/late twenty something would definitely not be a lawyer yet.

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Arthur Kipps was a trainee solicitor - rather low on the ladder of those that deal with the law.
The Bar Council explains the difference here:
A lawyer is a general term that covers both solicitor and barrister. A solicitor is usually the first person that a member of the public will go to with their legal problem. A solicitor will often refer the work to a barrister for specialist advice or to appear in court to represent the client.

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The boy was only 4. Daniel Radcliffe looked anywhere from 26-30 in the movie (I don't know his real age, curious how close I am). So no.

"The Martian Manhunter is the heart of the Justice League." - The Flash (Barry Allen)

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No, he actually looked 18. He's kind of a midget with a baby face. He was 22 or 23 in real life.

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